Friday, February 20, 2015

Comfort Reads

Over the past couple of months I have found myself needing time to myself. Last year I took quite a lot of time off work to grieve my mother's passing, and on top of that there have been a couple of times when I have just been sick. Since being sick is usually an unusual thing (maybe once a year), this illness after illness left me just plain worn out and not able to cope with anything of an emotional nature. I was just broken, and I desperately needed space and time to heal. My theory is that the grief from last year and subsequent stressful events at work had weakened my immunity so I have been, unfortunately, susceptible to whatever has been going around at work, and whatever DH has brought home with him.
Months later I have managed to construct some semblance of equanimity and I have been able to cope with most things... but I still manage to get sick easily (rebuilding my immunity has not been so easy to do). Which has left me with a lot of free time on my hands (at home, sick, on the sofa) and not a lot of energy to do many active things. Reading was also a somewhat difficult thing to do as some subjects were just too emotionally weighty for me to even attempt (as wells as being too weak to be able to hold up a book). So for most of this year I have been skirting around the more emotionally evocative novels knowing that it wouldn't take much to have me in tears, though I was still taken by surprise by one or two which had me bawling, but I managed to deal with it.
Which brings me to my next topic, what to read when you are feeling low.
I spent considerable time on my sofa, under a quilt and my little Samsung tablet on my chest, reading Pride and Prejudice fan fiction. I actually had quite a lot of time to sift through what I had already read, favourite any that I thought I might like to go back and read sometime, as well as blog about at a later date. It was almost therapeutic to read such fluff, about a beloved story, and just enjoy without being too emotionally engaged. You can find lots at this link:- Pride and Prejudice Fan Fiction
Hopefully I won't get sick again this year, I am making attempts to improve my health, but it will be some time I think, before I reach the level of health I was enjoying before last summer. It is a small comfort, but after I have finished working on the fan fiction for Pride and Prejudice there are so many other books to have a look at, that even if I do succumb again to illness, at least I have something easy and absorbing to do.
And if you can't read too much, there is always Pemberley Digital to keep you entertained.